This invention relates generally to biometric authentication transactions, and more particularly, to methods and systems for determining biometric data for use in conducting authentication transactions.
Users typically enroll in biometric authentication systems by providing biometric data for storage therein. Generally, during enrollment users present biometric data of a desired biometric modality for capture by a biometric data capture device. The captured biometric data is processed and then stored in the biometric authentication system as enrollment biometric data of the user. During authentication transactions, biometric data of the same desired biometric modality is captured from the user and is compared against the enrollment biometric data of the user in accordance with a biometric matching algorithm.
However, conditions existing while capturing biometric data during enrollment have been known to be different than conditions existing while capturing biometric data during an authentication transaction. These differences in conditions have been known to result in capturing different quality biometric data from the same user during enrollment versus during an authentication transaction. Because biometric matching algorithms are typically based on probabilities, such differences in quality may cause biometric authentication systems to generate erroneous authentication transaction results. For example, biometric authentication systems may erroneously identify genuine users as imposters or may erroneously identify imposters as genuine users. Such errors typically reduce the biometric authentication accuracy performance of biometric authentication systems.
Generally, efforts for improving accuracy performance of biometric authentication systems have focused on enhancing the mathematical and probabilistic functions of the biometric matching algorithms. However, such enhanced algorithms require substantial time and cost to develop while generally only marginally improving the accuracy performance of biometric authentication systems. Other methods for improving the accuracy performance of biometric authentication systems include replacing enrollment biometric data when the enrollment biometric data produces unusable or unacceptable results, and periodically replacing enrollment biometric data to combat temporal changes due to biometric template aging.